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OSW Commentary OSW Commentary CENTRE FOR EASTERN STUDIES NUMBER 404 24.08.2021 www.osw.waw.pl A durable state The 30th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence Tadeusz A. Olszański On 24 August 1991, Ukraine proclaimed independence, and a few months later (together with Russia and Belarus) it brought about the dissolution of the USSR. At the time of its founda- tion, the Ukrainian state was a continuation of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic; on the one hand, this delayed the de-Communisation of the organisational and legal system, but on the other, it saved the country from having to build up state institutions from scratch. After nearly a quarter of a century, the hour of its greatest trial arrived – revolution and war with Russia. Ukraine passed this test: it did not unilaterally implement the political part of the Minsk agreements which posed a direct threat to it, nor has it fallen into the group of ‘failed states’. The main threat to its future is not so much the ongoing conflict in the Donbas or the weakness of the economy, but rather demographic collapse: during its nearly thirty years of independence, it has lost a fifth of its population. The path away from the USSR ... Contrary to the rhetoric of the nationalists in Lviv and Kyiv, the efforts of the UPA in the 1940s did not lay the foundation of today’s independent Ukraine. The state would have arisen without them anyway, although it would have been different in nature. In fact, its roots go back to the Ukrainian People’s Republic of 1917–1920 – an inefficient state, not fully formed, but sufficiently capable of defending itself to impose on Bolshevik Russia the idea of being​​ separate from it (albeit within the Empire). Without the political and armed struggle of the Ukrainians (including the Communists) at that time, Russia would not have become a federal state. At most there would have been some form of autonomy for Ukraine, and not a Ukrainian SSR – and it was this which achieved independence in 1991. The Ukrainian state is in every respect its heir and successor: from its status of a founding member of the United Nations, through the administrative, legal and economic institutions it created (a significant part of which are still in force today), right up to the formal continuity of the organs of power. The parliament (Verkhovna Rada) of Ukraine, elected during the Soviet period, lasted until the end of its term (1994), and the constitution which replaced the Soviet document of 1978 was not adopted until 1996. EDITORS: Wojciech Konończuk, Tadeusz Iwański, Katarzyna Kazimierska, Tomasz Strzelczyk TRANSLATION: Jim Todd DTP: Urszula Gumińska-Kurek Centre for Eastern Studies ul. Koszykowa 6a, 00-564 Warsaw, Poland tel.: (+48) 22 525 80 00, [email protected] The views expressed by the authors of the papers www.osw.waw.pl do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Polish authorities. The Ukrainian SSR was a state not only formally – which was of paramount importance for its inter- national recognition in 1991 – but also in fact. It did not enjoy independence, and it had less real freedom to act than many autonomous territories outside the USSR. However, it had almost all the structures that make up modern states, including the central organs (including a legislative body), clearly defined borders, as well as state symbols and a state language in which it officially func- tioned – albeit not always in reality. This state was in many respects a simulacrum, one of the levels of governance within the Soviet Union, but its political class (nomenklatura) did have an awareness, if not of its individuality, then at least of the specificity of its own group interests. It also tried to im- plement these interests, even though right up until the twilight of 1990 it did not see independence (the separate identity of the state) as a realistic option. At the time it declared independ- At the time it declared independence, Ukraine was ence, Ukraine was characterised characterised by two very significant structural by two very significant structural weaknesses: it lacked both diplomatic personnel weaknesses: it lacked both diplo- and a supreme command for its armed forces. matic personnel and a supreme command for its armed forces (although the appropriate ministries did exist). The first issue was remedied quite easily, by attracting numerous diplomats from the old Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Kyiv and intensively training younger cadres. The second problem was not overcome: the Ministry of Defence and the General Staff proved to be weak, and the more politically-minded part of the generals were concentrated in Moscow. As a consequence, before 2014 the construction of the armed forces was a slow process, and they remained politically passive: the military did not play even the most minor role in any of the crises of the last thirty years. Independence was brought to Ukraine primarily by the development of events in Moscow: the rivalry between the Soviet Russian nomenklatura and the union’s centre (the USSR’s highest authorities), which led to the break-up of the federation. It was primarily the Russian political class – the only one that did not have its own republican central bodies – which wanted to ‘be at home’ and pursue its own interests. Kyiv followed in Moscow’s steps for almost all the time, cautious, sometimes even procrastinating. How much opportunism and fear were a part of this, and how much conscious policy – this does not matter. What does is that the evolution of both the nomenklatura and society as a whole enabled the peaceful dissolution of the USSR and the abolition of the Communist system of government. ... and towards independent Ukraine The Ukrainian independence movement was very small, and weak in organisational terms; it only enjoyed greater support in eastern Galicia around 1986–8, and did not play a major role in the devel- opment of later events. More important was the influence of the bloodshed in Vilnius (January 1991), and more broadly the determination of the elites and societies of the Baltic republics. But it was the independence movement that gave the Kyiv nomenklatura a new narrative at the dawn of the 1990s: that the demand for independence could be used in the course of negotiations on a new union treaty. And then – in a critical situation – you could reach out to grasp it. The road to independence began in July 1990, when the Supreme Council of the Ukrainian SSR adopted a declaration of suverenitet (specifically, of independence within the federal state). Kyiv followed the example of the Russian Republic, which had proclaimed its own suverenitet a month earlier. The declaration gave the republic/state the name of Ukraine, without any additions specifying the constitutional form of this entity. It then began, cautiously at first, to give the already existing Soviet-Ukrainian legislation a national form. OSW Commentary NUMBER 404 2 This process acquired a new dynamism in October 1990 with the so-called ‘revolution on granite’ (revoliutsiya na hraniti), a series of student protests supported by mass demonstrations from Kyiv residents (this was the first ‘Maidan’). Their clearly formulated demand – to reject the new union treaty which had been negotiated in Moscow – already constituted a demand for full independence. Six months later, in March 1991, the all-union referendum showed overwhelming support for remaining in the Soviet Union (only Eastern Galicia voted against, unanimous in its desire for independence). But this support was conditional: not for the USSR as it then was, but for a new, somehow reformed union (this is how the question was formulated). Simply asking the question about the future of this creation incidentally brought the question of its dissolution onto the agenda. After the failure of the Yanayev At the beginning of 2014, in the twenty-third year of coup in Moscow, the Ukrainian independence, Ukraine was facing internal collapse. Communist elites decided to de- Its armed forces, which had been systematically clare independence. They were dismantled under Yanukovych, were incapable of terrified by the dissolution of the action. CPSU in Russia and the collapse of the Soviet system in the Baltics. It is therefore hardly surprising to state that by proclaiming independ- ence on 24 August 1991, Kyiv was choosing the path of continuity, not a coup: the declaration did not include any reference to a Ukrainian People’s Republic, as some deputies had demanded. Moreover, independence was to be ‘ratified’ in a subsequent referendum, which was associated with the need to nullify the results of the March plebiscite. The referendum brought impressive support (90.3%) for what was already de facto independence, and the simultaneous presidential election was easily won by Leonid Kravchuk, until recently the deputy secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU/CPU, a skilful politician, and leader of the pro-independence wing of the Ukrainian nomenklatura. The Ukrainian political class found itself divided and, above all, confused. A few months ago, it had been fighting the very idea of ​​independence, but now – on the orders of the leadership of the re- cently deceased republic, and what was now a state (but with the same leadership!) – it had to build this very independence. Regardless of whether it did so with greater (in the west) or less conviction (in the centre and in the east) – or without it at all (in Crimea) – in this first phase it did turn out to be very effective. Negotiations on the union treaty were still ongoing in Moscow, and the preservation of the USSR was still a possibility. The Western powers also expected such a solution to be reached (on 1 August 1991, US President George H.W.
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